THE GALLIPOLIS ROTARY CLUB

URG President Addresses Gallipolis Rotary

Dr. Barbara Gellman Danley, President of the University of Rio Grande addressed Gallipolis Rotary today as a guest of PDG Mel Simon.  Pictured above are PDG Mel Simon, Dr. Danley, and Club President, Bonnie McFarland.

ADG Matt Willis provided the invocation to our meeting.  Guests included our speaker, Dr. Danley, and Chris Marazan, a guest of Mel Simon.  Chris has completed the membership application for Gallipolis Rotary.

Rotary Make-up—President Bonnie acknowledged that ADG Matt Willis also turned in a make up from the Wellston Rotary Club.  Matt announced their club recently inducted two new members and have moved their meeting location to the St. Peter and Paul Parrish Hall, at 227 South New York Avenue at Noon on Wednesdays.

Rotary Reading is Wednesday, Nov 5th—Project Chair, Emily Dailey, indicated that two schools this month have no readers signed up!  We need Rotarians EVERY month to read to the kids.  Please sign up, get your books from Emily!  This is a worthwhile project for our club members.

Blue Badge—President Bonnie took a moment to present a new Rotary blue badge to Jodie Anderson.  Jodie has been working hard for Rotary as Assistant Secretary.  Jodie has also been traveling on business for a few weeks and our club is thrilled to finally make this presentation.  Congratulations, Jodie!

Special Presentation—President Bonnie called on PDG Mel to receive a check from Gallipolis Rotary to benefit the District’s Philippine Relief program.  Mel has been championing the efforts to get a container of relief goods to that country and the good news is the container will leave Columbus this week and arrive in the Philippines on the 21st.  A number of contacts in Rotary have really helped cut through the governmental red tape!  Thanks to everyone who pitched in on this.

Split-The-Pot—Jim Morrison ran STP for the meeting and our small pot and large pot was $9.00 this week as we are starting over again after Margaret Evans took the winnings last week.  Margaret donated her gain to the RI Foundation!  Jim had Margaret draw for the winning ticket this week and the lucky ticket holder was . . . Jim Morrison! Jim donated his winnings of $9.00 to the club endowment and had Dave Nadler skillfully shuffle the new deck.  Jim pulled the 10 of clubs (I think!).  The Foundation Fine was assessed against anyone who did not yet vote today.

Club Elections—Jim Morrison conducted the club elections today distributing a paper ballot for members to vote for 8 club members to be listed in the run-off election to be held next week.  Top vote taker will then become our President Elect and Vice President next July when President Lou Ellen Werry takes the reins.

It was at this point in our meeting that we were interrupted by a fire alarm for a few minutes!  Thankfully the “all-clear” was announced in a few minutes.

Fellowship—Cleeland Willis ran club fellowship today and immediately fined our Secretary Chuck Clark for NOT hanging the banners today.  There were several additional fines for pictures in the paper—Debbie Rhodes, no as she did have her pin on, and Tammi Brabham, no, she had hers on as well!  Cleeland also fined Debbie Saunders for a recent picture and finally collected a buck!  We had several birthdays today—Mel Simon from last week, Melissa Kimmel, Dave Nadler and  Don Robinson, all have birthdays this week!  Our Mystery Singer, Margaret Evans, sang Happy Birthday to Mel on behalf of all our  birthday folks!  We had a couple of Happy Buck$ today—Lou Ellen Werry and Chuck Clark and Lou Ellen and PDG Mel each recently celebrated wedding anniversaries.  Congratulations to everyone!

Program—PDG Mel introduced our speaker for the morning, Dr. Barbara Gellman Danely, President of the University of Rio Grande.  Dr. Danely is a former Rotarian in Rochester, NY and comes to URG from her position as Vice Chancellor of the Ohio Board of Regents.  She emphasized that in July the University voted to have a single President and Board structure and this move is referred to “One Rio.” 

Dr. Danley continued to emphasize that Rio is well positioned in the state and has enthusiastic support from the Ohio Legislature and the Governor’s Office, as well as the Board of Regents.  It is quite competitive financially with other state schools and there is a strong positive wind of success on campus from the students to the staff and faculty.  It has much to brag about such as the recent award from the NAIA for the 9th consecutive year as Champions of Character.  Dr. Danley is leading a call to action to the campus and community, “What have you done to help the University of Rio Grande?”